All the beauty in the world : the Metropolitan Museum of Art and me /
Material type: TextPublisher: New York : Simon & Schuster, 2023Description: ix, 226 pages : illustrations ; 24 cmContent type:- text
- still image
- unmediated
- volume
- 9781982163303
- 1982163305
- Metropolitan Museum of Art and me
- 708.147/1 23/eng/20230110
Item type | Current library | Home library | Collection | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Standard Loan | Coeur d'Alene Library Adult Nonfiction | Coeur d'Alene Library | Book | 708.147 BRINGLE (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Checked out | 05/15/2024 | 50610023339679 | ||
Standard Loan | Spirit Lake Library Adult Nonfiction | Spirit Lake Library | Book | 708.14/BRINGLE (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 50610024120854 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
A best book of the year from New York Public Library, NPR, the Financial Times , Book Riot , and the Sunday Times (London).
A fascinating, revelatory portrait of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and its treasures by a former New Yorker staffer who spent a decade as a museum guard.
Millions of people climb the grand marble staircase to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art every year. But only a select few have unrestricted access to every nook and cranny. They're the guards who roam unobtrusively in dark blue suits, keeping a watchful eye on the two million square foot treasure house. Caught up in his glamorous fledgling career at The New Yorker , Patrick Bringley never thought he'd be one of them. Then his older brother was diagnosed with fatal cancer and he found himself needing to escape the mundane clamor of daily life. So he quit The New Yorker and sought solace in the most beautiful place he knew.
To his surprise and the reader's delight, this temporary refuge becomes Bringley's home away from home for a decade. We follow him as he guards delicate treasures from Egypt to Rome, strolls the labyrinths beneath the galleries, wears out nine pairs of company shoes, and marvels at the beautiful works in his care. Bringley enters the museum as a ghost, silent and almost invisible, but soon finds his voice and his tribe: the artworks and their creators and the lively subculture of museum guards--a gorgeous mosaic of artists, musicians, blue-collar stalwarts, immigrants, cutups, and dreamers. As his bonds with his colleagues and the art grow, he comes to understand how fortunate he is to be walled off in this little world, and how much it resembles the best aspects of the larger world to which he gradually, gratefully returns.
In the tradition of classic workplace memoirs like Lab Girl and Working Stiff , All The Beauty in the World is a surprising, inspiring portrait of a great museum, its hidden treasures, and the people who make it tick, by one of its most intimate observers.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 217-226).
The grand staircase -- Windows -- A Pieta -- Of millions of years -- Further shores -- Flesh and blood -- Cloisters -- Sentinels -- Kouros -- The veteran -- Unfinished -- Days' work -- As much as I can carry.
"A fascinating, revelatory portrait of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and its treasures by a former New Yorker staffer who spent a decade as a museum guard"--
"Only a few select people enjoy unrestricted access to every nook and cranny of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and among them are the guards who keep a watchful eye on the two-million-square-foot treasure house. For Bringley, the Museum was a temporary refuge that became his home away from home for a decade. Here he explore his tribe: the artworks and their creators and the subculture of museum guards. Though Bringley gradually returned to the larger world, here he explores the Museums hidden wonders-- and the people who make it tick."--
Table of contents provided by Syndetics
- Author's Note (ix)
- I The Grand Staircase (1)
- II Windows (15)
- III A Pieta (25)
- IV Of Millions of Years (35)
- V Further Shores (55)
- VI Flesh and Blood (67)
- VII Cloisters (83)
- VIII Sentinels (89)
- IX Kouros (105)
- X The Veteran (123)
- XI Unfinished (143)
- XII Days' Work (153)
- XIII As Much as I Can Carry (167)
- Acknowledgments (179)
- Artworks Referenced in the Text (181)
- Bibliography (217)
Excerpt provided by Syndetics
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Booklist Review
When Bringley's beloved brother died while they were in their twenties in 2008, he needed a place of solitude and solace and found it at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His warmly contemplative memoir, lustrous with nuanced and affecting musings on beauty and meaning and different ways of seeing, maps his transformative 10-year sojourn as a museum guard. Bringley delves ardently into the history and aesthetics of the paintings and sculptures he spends long days studying, sharing striking insights into the art and aesthetics of ancient Egypt, China, the Congo, the then new Islamic wing, and European old masters. He tells amusing and touching stories about museum visitors and his co-workers, weaves in fascinating behind-the-scenes information about the Met's massive operations, and asserts that the museum isn't only a place to learn "about" art but also to learn "from" art. Graced with a list of all the artworks he was enraptured by and an excellent bibliography, this is a profound homage to the marvels of a world-class museum and a radiant chronicle of grief, perception, and a renewed embrace of life.Kirkus Book Review
A former museum guard recounts the decade he spent at one of the world's iconic museums. Disenchanted with a seemingly glamorous post-graduation job at the New Yorker and heartbroken by the untimely death of a beloved brother, Bringley deliberately sought solace in art. At the Met, he gradually forged connections with co-workers from a wide variety of backgrounds, finding a kind of home at the museum. While the author employs the rather hackneyed formula of jumping between past and present, one can't help but be moved by connections he makes between the works over which he stood guard, and the childlike simplicity of the prose suits his sense of wonder. Amused by the ghoulish questions posed by a parade of schoolchildren through the Egyptian mummy section, he reflects on the futility of the mummification process. "The body doesn't make it," he writes. "Believe all you want that some piece of a person is immortal, but a significant part is mortal, inescapably, and mad science will not stop it from breaking down." The author is also intrigued by museumgoers who lack a sense of direction. "I like baffled people," he writes. "I think they are right to stumble around the Met discombobulated….None of us knows much about this subject--the world and all of its beauty." While some of Bringley's personal responses to masterworks are informative and relatable, others border on the saccharine. Writing about a Monet landscape, he notes, "When I experience such a thing, I feel faint but definite tremors in my chest." If these musings sometimes fail to stir us, the accompanying illustrations by McMahon strike just the right balance between simplicity and emotional complexity. Readers seeking sophisticated insights into the inner workings of the Met should look elsewhere, but Bringley offers enough interesting backstories to keep the pages turning. An emotionally cathartic stroll through the hallowed halls of a beloved institution. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.Author notes provided by Syndetics
Patrick Bringley worked for ten years as a guard in the galleries of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Prior to that, he worked in the editorial events office at The New Yorker magazine. He lives with his wife and children in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. All the Beauty in the World is his first book.There are no comments on this title.